Author
Topic: Lunch plan confusion (Read 2404 times)

A coworker offered to treat me to lunch the other day at a nearby restaurant. I said yes, and we agreed to meet at my desk at our scheduled lunch time. When that time came, she was nowhere to be found. None of my coworkers knew where she was. I didn't want to wander around looking in case they showed up at my desk. I waited about 15 minutes before I assumed they had forgotten or gotten busy. I pulled out my lunch I had packed (we made the plans for lunch earlier that day so I had still brought mine) and sat down to at at my desk. Two bites into my sandwich, CW walks by with CW2, sees me, and says " Oh, you started eating." Before I could swallow my food, she says to CW2, "we'll, looks like it will just be the two of us for lunch," and walked away. It took like 10 seconds.

If I had a chance, I would have liked to have said "oh, it's just a sandwich, I'll put it away and we can go now. I wasn't sure if you forgot our plans." Would that have been okay? Or did her lack of apology/re-offer imply she doesn't actually want to go? Would it be okay to ask her if we can go later this week, or do I wait until she mentions it?

Logged

Quote from: magician5

Quote from: Kinseyanne

In the bag was two cans of kitten formula

So now ... just add water and you get kittens? What will they think of next??

Honestly, it sounds like she purposely decided to ditch you and then tried to stick the blame on you. If your co-worker was genuinely sorry, she would've said "Sorry I'm late, the copy machine got jammed and Dave here asked me to help him fix it. Took forever and I worried you'd leave without us!" I wouldn't ask for a reschedule.

A coworker offered to treat me to lunch the other day at a nearby restaurant. I said yes, and we agreed to meet at my desk at our scheduled lunch time. When that time came, she was nowhere to be found. None of my coworkers knew where she was. I didn't want to wander around looking in case they showed up at my desk. I waited about 15 minutes before I assumed they had forgotten or gotten busy. I pulled out my lunch I had packed (we made the plans for lunch earlier that day so I had still brought mine) and sat down to at at my desk. Two bites into my sandwich, CW walks by with CW2, sees me, and says " Oh, you started eating." Before I could swallow my food, she says to CW2, "we'll, looks like it will just be the two of us for lunch," and walked away. It took like 10 seconds.

If I had a chance, I would have liked to have said "oh, it's just a sandwich, I'll put it away and we can go now. I wasn't sure if you forgot our plans." Would that have been okay? Or did her lack of apology/re-offer imply she doesn't actually want to go? Would it be okay to ask her if we can go later this week, or do I wait until she mentions it?

I am not sure of her motivation. But, if I were in your shoes, I would not expect much from her.

She was late. (It happens. But, not explaining or apologizing is wrong). She sees you eating a sandwich and assumes that you do not want to go to lunch. She does not ask you that. She does not even allow you time to correct her assumption. She and CW2 walk away without waiting for you to say anything.

I think she was rude. I would keep all further communications with her on a professional level. Don't bring it up. Don't make it a big deal. If she decides that she wants to extend another invitation, how you respond is up to you. But, if it is for another day, I would pack another sandwich in case she decides to give you the brush-off again.

It would have been helpful for her to tell you that she was inviting more than one person to lunch. In my shoes if I had known that it was going to be more than the two of us, I would have contacted her about 20 min early to find out who else was going and where we should meet. That way if you did still want to walk around looking for her, you would have had some idea of where she was.

15 min is a decent amount of time to wait for someone and I think she was definitely rude

*actually I'm anal, so I would have contacted her ahead of time anyway to confirm what time we were meeting for lunch*